Most tall-grass-loving homeowners fear and hate the idea of lawn scalping. Although it is a challenging process, it can be a ticket to achieving a greener and healthy lawn within 4-6 weeks. Understandably, you have questions lingering in your mind; what is lawn scalping? When should I scalp my lawn? How do I do it? Here are the answers to all your questions.
Lawn scalping refers to cutting the grass extremely short by removing most grass blades and exposing the turf stems. The best time for this practice is early spring or prior to spring lawn green-up. This helps your lawn get a huge jump-start as you eliminate the layer of dead grass, exposing the ground to sunlight. When you scalp the lawn in early spring, you help create optimal conditions for faster lawn green-up.
Scalping Grass: What it Means
Simply, scalping grass is mowing your lawn significantly low, removing most grass blades, and exposing the stems. Scalping a lawn helps eliminate all build-ups from the winter, exposes soil to sunlight, and stimulates your turf to grow.
In most cases, lawn scalping is not ideal since you must cut over one-third of grass blades every mow. Doing this may give your grass and roots unnecessary stress.
When Should You Scalp Your Lawn?
If you’re wondering when to scalp your lawn, the practice is a specialized technique you must avoid using regularly. You should do the process at the right time so as to be effective and not damage your lawn.
The best time for lawn scalping is during early spring or before spring green-up. This only applies to warm-season grasses like Zoysia and Bermuda.
Scalp warm-season turfs before they recover from winter dormancy. The aim is to remove dead grass and thatch, helping the soil warm up faster. This boosts new growth of healthier and greener grass faster.
If you think your region might experience a sudden cold snap, do not scalp. Also, avoid scalping lawns when there is a danger of frost, as it can damage a scalped yard.
Furthermore, avoid scalping your grass too late in spring, as the intense summer heat will damage the lawn.
It’s also not ideal to scalp cool-season lawns, as they don’t respond well to this practice as warm-season grasses. Scalping these lawns reduces the quality of growing grass and encourages weeds.
How to Scalp a Lawn
Here are the steps to follow when scalping grass;
1. Time the cut
When scalping lawns, timing is critical. Scalp your warm-season grasses in early spring when they are dormant. If you want to prepare your property for winter, scalp it after the first frost.
2. Adjust the mower
Sharpen your lawn scalper or mower blade and adjust its lowest height.
3. Mow the lawn
Scalp lawn or cut the grass as low as possible and ensure you expose the stems to promote new growth. Remove and dispose of all the debris and grass clippings from the lawn.
If you want to avoid DIY, hire professionals for lawn scalping services.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q: Is scalping good for your lawn?
A: For a long time, homeowners with lawns have considered grass scalping a natural way of encouraging greener, thicker, fuller, and healthier grass because the process does not require the use of chemicals. Scalping the lawn allows for sunlight to penetrate the soil, something that contributes to better seed-to-soil contact, and faster green-up, thus, improving stronger grass growth.
Q: Should you scalp lawn in spring?
A: Yes, the best time for yard scalping is in spring since the process exposes the turf to the elements. So, doing it in this period reduces the amount of time the grass stems will be exposed. This is because the turf will start to grow again during this period.
Q: Should I fertilize before or after the scalp?
A: The best time to fertilize your grass is right after scalping the lawn. This fertilizer contains nutrients that soil requires to boost the growth of lush and green grass. Applying it to a scalped property allows these nutrients to infiltrate the ground more efficiently as the grass is short.
Conclusion
Lawn scalping involves a lot of work as you have to cut the grass more than the required mowing height.
However, doing it in early spring or before spring lawn green-up helps your lawn revive faster. Since you eliminate the thick layer of dead grass in the process, you expose the ground to sunlight.
This gives your dormant grass a huge jump-start, creating a quicker spring green-up.
